Your Shell Belongs to Them, But Your Ghost Belongs to You

Condemn the remake of Ghost in the Shell for its racial insensitivity all you want, but there is one solid gold piece of wisdom we can all glean from it regarding our proverbial masters, as delivered by one of the first experiment shells, Hideo (Michael Pitt, beautiful even in machine form). And that is, while you might think you must commit yourself fully to your employer merely because they own your body five days a week (sometimes even seven), you must never forget that your mind is still your own–no matter how often they try to use it for frivolous practices like creating spreadsheets (now, usually travel-based).

For it is as Hideo says: “Your shell belongs to them, but your ghost belongs to you.” And yes, your body is most assuredly a shell of what it was after enough time spend in the cube, and your mind a veritable ghost of what it used to be. Still, you must cling to what’s left of it. Not just for your own semblance of sanity, but out of pure spite against them.